This invention relates generally to vehicle mileage recording and is particularly directed to apparatus for recording and displaying mileage usage of a vehicle for multiple business uses as well as personal use.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires strict compliance with its mileage logging requirements for business related usage of a vehicle such as an automobile. Compliance with these requirements is generally by maintaining a written log wherein is recorded the mileage covered for business related activities. For most businessmen, these log entries are inconvenient and frequently just simply not made. Subsequent activities and distances covered frequently make it impossible to reconstruct earlier activity, particularly after extended periods of time. There is, therefore, a need for a system which permits one to record vehicle mileage in terms of business related activities which allows the mileage to be ascribed to personal versus business use, and to further permit mileage breakdown among various, separate business activities.
There are currently available a variety of vehicle installed devices for monitoring and displaying vehicle usage parameters. For example, most vehicles include a resettable trip odometer. The requirement to regularly reset this odometer for individual, separate business activity trips is difficult and frequently impractical for the businessman. Another device recently introduced allows an employer to automatically record a trip of an employee in a service vehicle, including total mileage traveled and the number and frequency of stops as well as total time and time between each stop. This system includes a built-in printer for providing a hard copy of trip data. Other computer-based arrangements inform the driver of the miles and time to go for reaching a programmed destination, the amount of fuel remaining in terms of miles which can be covered, and other useful information.
There is not presently available a trip monitoring arrangement which permits the monitoring, recording and display of the mileage of each of a large number of trips, each related to a separate business activity which allows one to maintain accurate business mileage records for income tax calculation purposes.
The present invention addresses the aforementioned limitations of the prior art by providing a mileage recording and display apparatus for use in a vehicIe used for multiple business purposes or for business and personal use which allows for the recording and display of vehicle usage mileage for each type of activity. This invention contemplates storage of individual trip mileage as well as total mileage for all business and personal usage in a nonvolatile memory for subsequent recall in accurately reconstructing vehicle usage such as for tax calculation purposes.